There's a moment in Howard Hawks' congenial Western, "Rio Bravo," in which some bad guys have captured Wayne and are forcing him to trick a deputy into releasing a prisoner. Wayne, in his John Wayneness, has previously rid the world of a passel of evildoers. As they ready themselves, Wayne mutters something expressive of reluctance, and one of the bad guys says, "If it had been up to me, you'd have never got up off the floor. Some of those you killed were friends of mine."
None of that sentimental crap here. None of the dozen or more heavies is friends with any of the others. Instead, they slap each other around, issue orders, leave each other to bleed out, curse one another, and sacrifice each other without blinking an eye. In one case, I think, they sacrifice one of their own simply because leaving him behind the train would seem untidy.
And the villains are -- or should be -- the best part of a cartoon movie like this. They LOOK fine, for heavies. They're ugly and/or sinister and all are brutish, though, at times, Steven Seagal dispatches them with such alacrity that we can't register which is which. They're just bodies slumping bloodied to the floor of the speeding train or acrobatically tumbling off a high span bridge. It doesn't matter. They all look as if they should have been strangled with their own placentas. Except for Peter Greene as a subordinate villain. He not only looks the part; he can act too. (Catch him in "The Usual Suspects.")
Maybe I should mention the plot. Sure, why not? Eric Bogosian is a computer genius who has commandeered a secret satellite that can virtually destroy anything on earth. It can cause subterranean earthquakes or shoot down airplanes or whatever else is required to make the brass at the Pentagon tremble. He wants a billion dollars not to trash the Pentagon -- and he gets it. Oh, and he makes a hundred million on the side by destroying the unpleasant wife of some rich guy. Steven Seagal -- surprise! -- foils the plan and kills all the evildoers.
Hundreds of people are held hostage aboard the train. Seagal saves them all, except a young couple from the Pentagon who give Bogosian the required passwords rather than have their eyeballs coagulated by a red-hot needle. Besides, they were fornicating, so they deserve being thrown to their deaths, such fraternization being against Pentagon policy.
I don't know why the other passengers are allowed to survive. Okay, maybe they weren't having unmarried sex with one another. Not as far as we know anyway. But none of them can act. Appearing in an important role, as Katherine Heigl does, and being bereft of talent is a worse sin than fornication in my book. She's young and tender but she looks sassy enough, and she's supposed to be Seagal's niece, so I suppose they let her survive with the others.
In the Pentagon group -- those guys sweating it out and trying to figure out how to stop Bogosian from destroying the world -- Kurtwood Smith is his reliable self and so is Dale Dye, looking abominably fit in his Navy captain's uniform.
The direction follows the simplicity of the story. Multiple close ups almost burst out of the screen. For important or unusually witty wisecracks, EXTREME close ups are used. Eric Bogosian never looks at a camera or a computer monitor without the exposure of every pore of his face. You can almost see his pupils dilate when the lights go off at the end of a take.
Of Steven Seagal, what is left to be said? Mano a mano with skilled martial arts experts leaves him unscathed -- not even breathless -- while his opponent fights dirty, curses violently, and invariably loses and winds up covered with blood. Seagal doesn't even have one of those trickles of blood from the corner of his lips. He can't. He's superhuman, supernatural. When his train crashes head on into another, he can outrun the impact and throw himself onto a helicopter ladder. Yet, I'm not sure he's that bright. There is a CD ROM that makes it possible for Bogosian to control the satellite. Seagal and a sidekick manage to steal it and leave the train. A land pursuit follows because the terrorists need the CD and want it back. Why doesn't Seagal just throw the CD irretrievably into the canyon? Did Superman ever take an IQ test? Inquiring minds want to know.
